After that initial encounter, it had become oddly quiet as far as pirate slaying went. Some showed up, maybe one or two at a time, and were summarily killed, but none presented as much of a threat to Harvin as that initial blockade had. Frankly, he was unnerved, and those few pirates that did reveal themselves after the other mercenary's split tended to be greeted with yet another screech of fear, and a generally terrible death by crushing force. That said, it ultimately transpired that Harvin was heading in the right direction as far as completing the mission went: he found himself before a pair of fairly large doors, maybe twice his height and apparently sealed closed. They seemed... well, tough. Plasteel, definitely, maybe even adamantium if he was unlucky... but if he was lucky, maybe he could... extending one pair of chainswords from his arm again, he turned the weapons on, and after some hesitation, rammed them into the metal as hard as he could, the noise of grinding metal and revving motors echoing loudly through the facility. Inexplicably, the weapons didn't break, and with something almost like a smile on his face, he dragged the blades through the doors until what sounded like a loud lock breaking apart resonated from them. Then, withdrawing and retracting the chain weapons, he forced the fingers of his robotic arm into the newly-formed gap in the doorway, and pushed with all his might, forcing the right-hand door open.

Almost immediately, a burst of white-hot energy flew out of the newly-formed opening, barely missing Harvin's limb; with a squawk, he withdrew his arm from the opening, then with another charged through the doorway, flinging himself to the ground as another blast of heat passed over his head. Scrambling to his feet, he found himself almost face to face with a human of clearly significant age, grizzled and scarred, with a (bemused) scowl on his face, an odd-looking gun in his hands, a sword of some sort on one hip, and a body covered in...

'Wha- WAI- WHAT?!' Harvin yelled in a shrill, cracking voice, slowly figuring out just how much power this opponent actually had, in particular what had just narrowly missed turning him into superheated vapour. 'Izzat power armour?! Why do you 'ave a... that's a PLASMA GUN! [i]WHAT?[/i]'

'Call it loot, call it captain's personal gear,' the man responded, now smirking at the mercenary's distress, 'it don't matter none why or how I have it. What matters is how much of a headstart it gives you on bein' vaporised before the reactors blow.'

'The- what?' Harvin glanced over the guy's shoulders, and his eyes widened at the bank of red-flashing screens, and what looked like... temperature gauges? 'Wait, what did you do?!' he asked in a panic, though the only answer he received was the captain levelling the gun at him again. Shrieking again, he somehow managed to bowl himself out of the way of yet another plasma shot's trajectory the moment before it was fired, before unleashing and unloading at the captain with just about every laser and SP weapon in his arm, screaming the entire time. Once again, the vast majority of shots missed, these ones destroying a lot of the hardware keeping track of whatever destruction the man had been planning on unleashing; this time, though, even the clean hits were absorbed or repelled by the man's armour, and he continued to laugh as he fired a fourth shot from the gun, this one fortunately aimed to lead Harvin by too much, and instead melting yet another monitor down to slag. It was mere seconds, though, before Harvin himself ran dry on ammunition; the SP casings were ejected, and the majority of the weapons retracted automatically, as a number of automated systems in the arm worked to reload every gun as quickly as possible.

Not fast enough, of course, and Harvin knew they would be all but worthless against this guy's defenses anyway. Forced to make a snap decision as the captain re-aimed in preparation for another shot, he decided it was worth the cost to finally unveil his trump card. From the palm of his hand, the barrel of his prized Angelus Bolt Carbine showed itself, and with a thought fired a single, Marine-caliber bolt round a fraction of a second before the fifth plasma burst could vaporise his flesh.

As it happens, firing what amounts to a high-yield fragmentation grenade in a rather confined space is not usually a good idea. Harvin missed hitting the man directly, but the explosion nevertheless threw him several meters to the floor, and the few intact reactor monitors were summarily destroyed by the blast. Harvin himself, being relatively far from the shockwave and partially shielded by his arm, survived relatively intact, though he still stumbled and yelled wildly at the heat and force rolling over him. With that said and done, Harvin took a moment to figure out how trashed the place now was... the answer was "very". It'd be a miracle if the reactors weren't still going to blow up, as Harvin suspected, but at least the guy would blow up... fewer of them? Large explosions tended to be catastrophic either way. For now, Harvin barely thought about it; glancing at the captain to see that he was still alive and moving- 'HOW?! DHK-!' -Harvin charged the pirate, attempting to strike with his arm again, only for a foot to plant itself right in his groin, winding him and knocking him down. Positions were promptly reversed, and the pirate straddled the cyborg mercenary, trying to beat him [i]with the plasma gun,[/i] an assault only fended off by Harvin's own artificial arm.

'Are you STUPID?!' Harvin yelled over the attack as metal sparked off metal. 'You're gonna blow US BOTH UP!'

'I'll crush your dumb face before that, jackass!' the pirate responded, continuing to strike a few more times before getting the picture and kicking Harvin's protection away. Another fatal shot to the face was avoided only because Harvin repeated the pirate's own tactic, kicking out with both feet and sending him flailing down as he fired wildly into the walls, the gun now making a threatening whine that only increased in pitch and volume over the next few seconds. The mercenary panicked once more, screaming loudly as the need to get out of there before he got exploded flooded his mind, and he praised the Emperor as he passed through the doorway.

Less so as the pirate followed him, aiming the still-complaining plasma gun for a seventh and final shot, then suffering an attack of rationality at the last moment and flinging the malfunctioning weapon back into the room, taking cover behind the single intact door as the gun returned to the Omnissiah's welcoming grasp in a solar flare of impossibly high heat. This was felt by Harvin even several meters from the door, and surely only survived by the captain because of his own protection behind the thickly-armoured door and personal energy field; if anything was intact in that room before then, it sure as the Warp wasn't anymore.

For a brief moment, both Harvin and the pirate captain allowed themselves to relax, Harvin in particular making the sign of the Aquila and muttering 'Bugger me!' under his breath. Then, the moment passed, and Harvin stood again, revealing all four chainswords and revving them threateningly. It was only fair, after all, since the captain now had no ranged weapons, and all of Harvin's save one were ineffective... and he didn't trust his accuracy with that one, in his state.

The captain laughed at that display. He drew his own sword, hefted it, then pressed a button on the handle, coating the otherwise-standard edge in a field of searing, blue-glowing energy that made even Harvin's weapons seem somewhat pathetic by comparison.

'...er... that's a power sword,' Harvin stated, his chainswords revving down to zero.

'Sure is.' The captain smiled viciously.

A moment passed before Harvin retracted his chainswords fully, turned on his heel, and ran from the captain squealing like a madman, up to and including shrieked cries for help. The captain took pursuit just a few meters behind, screaming obscenities about how he was going to kill the mercenary with the weapon. And so it went.

[@Jbcool][@Quinntessential][@DrunkasaurusRex][@Hank][@TemplarKnight07]